The last thing you want is to scramble for scattered or outdated process documentation every time you need to onboard a new employee or face an auditor.
The solution? Process management vs. process documentation, and robust automation. With the right tools, you can build your processes and update your central process repository with a few clicks of a mouse.
Whether you want to upgrade from a paper- or PDF-based repository—or you just want a better tool to manage your org’s processes—we have ideas for you.
How automation tools can maintain your central process repository
If you’re still leaning on legacy systems—or a filing cabinet—to house process documents, you could be losing time and money or getting behind your competitors.
“A lot of times, you lose to doing nothing. It’s not like you lost a competitor. It’s a, ‘Hey, we don’t have the budget; we don’t have the time; priorities changed.’ And that’s why you end up with these antiquated processes,” says Steve Witt, Director of Public Sector Sales at Nintex.
“A lot of the processes are PDFs, which I think are nothing more than digital paper. Then, on the back end, there is an Excel spreadsheet. That’s not effective, and it’s error-prone.”
When you make a decision to move to automated tools for your central process repository, you experience benefits like:
- Employee empowerment: These tools provide easy access for anyone across the organization—from marketing to engineering and everything in between. Employees feel more confident in their roles because they know exactly what processes entail—and they can automate them when they spot optimization opportunities.
- Consistency: Automation eliminates the human variance in how you document processes. This allows you to create clearer processes that lead to consistent products and services for your customers.
- Compliance: Risk management and compliance are a necessary part of doing business. By using an automated tool as your central process repository, you ensure repeatable execution and avoid data errors that could have major consequences. For example: “If you’re creating a sales order, you might need different processes for the U.S., Australia, Europe, or New Zealand due to regulatory differences,” says Jonathan Butler, Group Product Manager at Nintex. With variation management, available in Nintex’s Process Manager, teams can document a standard process—then automatically customize it by region, line of business, or country.
Three automation tools to consider for your central process repository
For a mid-sized business, having a digital process repository is a powerful tool. It serves as a reference point for employees, reduces errors, enables faster onboarding, and allows for better decision-making.
Let’s take a look at three types of automation tools to consider for your process repository.
- Workflow automation and business process management
Workflow automation and business process management (BPM) tools let you streamline, automate, and optimize business operations.
Workflow automation tools can help you define workflows, set up triggers and actions, and integrate tools to connect their capabilities. Meanwhile, BPM tools take a broader approach, focusing on the design, modeling, analysis, monitoring, and continuous improvement of business processes. Some tools, including Nintex, let you do both.
“With a platform like Nintex, everything—from capturing business requirements to deploying automation—can be consolidated,” says Jonathan Butler, Group Product Manager at Nintex. “The different teams, whether line-of-business or development, work side by side within one system. This reduces the cognitive load on teams, simplifies tracking ROI for business leaders, and provides a single metric to measure success.”
Tools to consider: Platforms like Nintex, Microsoft Power Automate, and Conga work to automate, manage, and document business processes and enable process mapping and efficient workflow automation. For example, with Nintex, you could map your process for invoice management, automate the generation of documents and routing for approvals, and store your automated process map in a central repository for easy access.
💡Did you know? You can use Nintex for Microsoft to extend your Microsoft investment with no-code advanced workflows and process intelligence. While Microsoft Power Automate has limitations like processes that only run for 30 days, Nintex lets you automate complex, cross-functional processes both inside and outside your Microsoft environment.
2. Knowledge management systems
A knowledge management system (KMS) is a centralized tool designed to collect, organize, store, and share your company’s information. The goal is to allow employees to quickly access knowledge and use it to make decisions and collaborate with team members.
A knowledge management system might include resources like:
- Process manuals
- Standard operating procedures (SOPs)
- Training materials
- Internal policies
- Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Meeting notes
- Best practice documents
Tools to consider: Platforms like Confluence, SharePoint, or Notion allow you to create centralized repositories where employees can access, update, and manage their workflows and processes. For example, you could create a cloud-based system to house all of your SOPs, share them with others, and track changes users make.
💡Did you know? If you already have a knowledge management system but feel frustrated by its limited built-in automation options, turn to Nintex. For example, with Nintex for SharePoint, you can manage, automate, and fine-tune your SharePoint workflows to save you time and stress.
3. Content management systems (CMS)
Content management systems (CMS) are software tools that enable companies to create, manage, and modify their digital content. While many people think of CMS platforms for updating their website, you can also use them to build and maintain internal systems, such as process repositories, that contain text, images, videos, and documents.
These systems often include features for access control and collaboration so that multiple users can update your processes securely and efficiently.
Tools to consider: You can use WordPress, HubSpot, Drupal, or even Google Drive to maintain an accessible library of resources for your teams. For example, you might create a repository of sales information, including brochures, images, videos, and processes, that your reps can draw.
💡Did you know? While known for its robust features and functionalities, HubSpot may not do everything you want right out of the box. With Nintex Apps, a low-code applications builder, you can build on-brand forms and intranet pages for your process repository—without complicated coding.
How to get started with automating your central process repository
Getting started with automating your central process repository can feel overwhelming, which might discourage you from taking any action at all.
“In my experience, resistance to change usually isn’t about the difficulty of the change itself but rather about the perceived scope and uncertainty,” says Butler.
But by breaking this one big task of getting started with process automation into a few smaller ones, you can gather small wins and make slow, steady progress.
Here are three steps to get you going:
1. Talk to department heads and business users
Getting started with process automation means getting a detailed understanding of your processes. As you chat with team members and leaders, listen for processes described as repetitive, tedious, or time-consuming.
2. Identify a process excellence champion
Look for someone high up in the organization to support and champion your efforts. A
process excellence champion sets the bar for process excellence and encourages others to join them.
“The biggest thing we’ve seen hold organizations back is the lack of an executive
sponsor who sees the importance of operational efficiency,” says Butler. “When a senior leader steps up and says, ‘Here’s our standardized approach,’ everything becomes much easier. Without this top-down drive, achieving process excellence from bottom-up approach is an uphill battle.”
3. Implement process management software
An all-in-one process management software like Nintex will take you the rest of the way.
With the Nintex platform, you can:
-
- Quickly identify work processes
- Visually map them
- Evaluate whether they are suited for automation
- Generate workflows
Nintex stores all of your processes and workflows in a central process repository, so anyone can quickly access them.
Coke Florida gets proactive on processes with Nintex
An independent Coca-Cola bottler, Coke Florida expanded in phases, resulting in disconnected and disjointed processes. Over 600 of their processes were housed in a legacy process repository containing PDFs, videos, pictures, and spreadsheets. Unwieldy to access and hard to maintain, Coke Florida turned to Nintex Forms and Nintex Process Manager to create an accessible, automated repository that improves visibility, encourages collaboration, and boosts accountability—creating better business growth.
Save time and resources with an automated process repository
Put paper and PDFs behind you with an automated process repository that empowers your employees, creates more consistency in process documentation, and helps you stay compliant with changing regulations.
Nintex’s all-in-one process automation platform lets you identify, document, manage, and automate your processes to power up your productivity and efficiency. Contact us for a free demo today.
